Paper Robots Fight to the Death

A news.telegraph
article describes the spectator sport of paper robot westling that's
become a fad in Japan. The papers robots, known as Kami-Robo, are 15-20
cm high and fight in a tiny boxing ring. The action is seen on a big
screen with a professional announcer. Tomohiro Yasui
invented Kami-robo as a child after watching Mobile Suit Gundam and
professional wrestling. It's not entirely clear from the article and
associated photos but the robots don't move under their own power.
There's no fancy stop motion photography involved. A human hand just
holds each robot and bangs them into each other much like a child
playing with action figures. The whole thing might sound silly but
over 500 people attended a recent Kaim-Robo match in Japan. There are
plans to introduce Kami-Robo in the US. If you think about, Kami-Robo
are controlled by offstage humans, so they're not really that different
from Battlebots and might have a ready made audience here. For more
details see the Kami-robo website
which includes some Quicktime videos of an
actual match.

It reminds me of Mr. Hand getting Sluggo to beat up Mr. Bill. Now if
only they could re-enact Star Wars with paper dolls, now that would be
cool. I could see it now. When Chewbaca walks in they could sing:
"Here comes Mr. Bills dog."